Cons

Bottom Line

Fluenz guides language learners through a rigorous, thorough program, with ample context in provided in English.
It's among the best, but it's expensive and lacks a few features.

Feb. 16, 2019

A teacher in a classroom can adapt to your learning style, but software can't. That's why it's so important to find an app and program that work for you when you decide to learn a language on your own. Fluenz is a language-learning program that feels more like a private class than a series of flashcards and games. You learn by watching videos of an instructor who gives you new vocabulary, explains grammar, and teaches you things you can't pick up from exercises alone—although Fluenz has those, too. It's a thorough program, with loads of content to keep you busy for months on end. Fluenz is an impressively well rounded app for learning a language, as it teaches you how to speak, hear, and write the language of your choice.

Fluenz is also a wonderful alternative to apps that don't provide any instruction in the learner's native tongue, such as Rosetta Stone. While Rosetta Stone may not be suited to everyone's needs, it remains PCMag Editors' Choice among paid language-learning programs because it offers many more languages than Fluenz. Duolingo is the Editors' Choice among free programs. If you've tried those apps and didn't like them, take a look at Fluenz. It's refreshingly different.

Fluenz Languages

Fluenz has programs for seven languages: Chinese (Mandarin with Pinyin writing), French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Latin American Spanish, and European Spanish. They all use English as the language of instruction. It's not a huge selection, but it does cover some of the most popular languages that English speakers learn. Note that with the Mandarin program, you won't learn to read or write Chinese, as it uses Pinyin transliteration only.

If there's a language you need not covered by Fluenz, try Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, or Pimsleur. Duolingo has courses for around 30 languages and Rosetta Stone has 28. Pimsleur has courses in 50 languages, but just know going in that it's an audio-only course. It's very good, but if you're looking for an app with interactive exercises, Pimsleur isn't it.

Fluenz Pricing

Fluenz costs anywhere from $187 to $408, depending on the package you choose. These are one-time payments, not subscriptions. Every language is broken into levels. French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and both versions of Spanish have five levels. There are only three levels for Mandarin.

The options are:

Level 1 ($187)

Level 2 ($187)

Levels 1+2 ($258)

Levels 1+2+3 ($308)

Levels 3+4+5 ($320)

Levels 1+2+3+4+5 ($408, often discounted to $378)

When you buy Fluenz, you can either get it as a digital download or buy discs, and the price is the same for both. No matter how you buy it, you also get access to the same materials via the Fluenz website and mobile apps whenever you like.

Compared with other plans, Fluenz's prices are a little high, but not wildly so. Every level comes with a lot of material, keeping the overall value quite high. Plus, it's a one-time payment rather than a subscription fee.

In general, online language-learning apps cost in the ballpark of $10-$12 per month. Even Rosetta Stone, which was once among the most expensive language software products, has moved to a subscription model that charges anywhere from $11.99 per month with no commitment to $167.76 for two years.

Finally, if you're on a budget, check your public library. Many libraries in the US and Canada provide patrons online access to language-learning software.

Getting Acquainted With Fluenz

I've used Fluenz to learn a bit of French and Chinese, picking up the app every year or so to see what's new. Chinese has certainly been more challenging than French, as I've had some exposure to French before. Learning a little Chinese gave me a good understanding of what's included with the Pinyin instruction, however, and it opened my eyes to how Fluenz helps you feel confident when approaching a language that might seem intimidating.

To give you an idea of how much content is inside Fluenz, Mandarin levels one and two have 45 lessons, plus an introduction and conclusion. French level one has 30 lessons. A lesson took me anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes to complete. They're meaty, and sometimes they're a little slow going. If you studied consistently, you might spend four to six weeks completing a single level. That's a lot of content.

How Fluenz Works

Structurally, Fluenz is very clear. Progress markers show exactly where you left off and what you've completed. You're meant to move through content sequentially, though you don't have to.

Levels are broken into sessions, and within sessions are the workouts or exercises. Each session starts with a video that frames the upcoming lesson. The workouts that follow then introduce new material and then help you review it. Between many workouts you watch more videos that help break down and further explain the concepts you've just learned.

The programs begin with a welcome video. An instructor appears on screen to explain how Fluenz works in the most general sense. Sonia Gil, the company's founder, is a staple in these videos. In the Mandarin Chinese course, Gil assures you that she is nowhere near native-level fluency with Chinese, but she can navigate plenty of cities in China with a good deal of confidence and more than adequate pronunciation. In the French program, Gil introduces the early lessons but is quickly replaced by a native French speaker once the material moves past the very basics.

The videos are staged and scripted. They're crystal clear in delivery, and the production value is high. At first they feel slow, but once you get into more challenging content, the pacing feels like it was designed to give you time to absorb whatever you're learning. Even so, the videos can be tedious at times. They're a little too scripted. But the material is excellent, and there's real value in seeing the face and mouth of a person who's teaching pronunciation.

One good design feature of the web app is that if you leave the window while a video is playing, it stops. In other words, you can't passively listen to the video and go check your email. The video has to be the active window or it won't play. That's brilliant, and I love it.

Fluenz Workouts

Fluenz starts most of its exercises, or workouts, with a dialogue the learner is told to play three times: once with subtitles in both the new language and English, once with the subtitles in only the new language, and once with no subtitles at all. Then the words and phrases you heard from the opening dialogue appear in writing, speaking, and listening exercises that follow.

In the exercises, you might hear a word or phrase and have to type it or translate it. Or you might see a list of words, phrases, or sentences in two languages and have to match up the translations. That's not unlike the way other language-learning apps work. The real difference comes when Fluenz slots a video lesson in between some of your exercises. It's in these videos that your guide breaks down what you've just learned.

In the videos, you learn how to parse different words and phrases, rather than having to guess their meaning from context, pictures, or process of elimination, which is how Rosetta Stone teaches. In Rosetta Stone, you might understand that some word is the opposite of "child," but whether it means "adult" or "person" is anyone's guess. In Fluenz, you get a teacher who explains the subtleties of the language, like the difference between an and année. Both mean "year" in French but they have different uses.

Fluenz has mastered the art of repetition. When the program introduces a new word or concept, you'll see, hear, and write it many times over in both the current lesson and future lessons. For beginners, the drill-and-kill method is highly effective, as long as you study consistently.

In typing exercises, Fluenz is precise in that it requires you to spell everything correctly, accent marks and all. If you get an answer wrong, you don't get any hints or suggestions as to where you made an error. The most you can do is reveal the correct answer, which feels lot like giving up. Duolingo is more lenient. If you miss only one accent mark in a spelling exercise, the app points out what you got wrong, but scores the exercise as correct and lets you move on. Babbel requires precision, but it highlights where you went wrong so that you can try to correct yourself.

Who Should Use Fluenz?

Fluenz works extremely well for beginners who want to learn a handful of useful phrases quickly. More experienced speakers may have trouble figuring out where to start. I jumped ahead in French and found I could understand most of it, but I struggled with spelling. Quite a few of the interactive exercises test your spelling skills, so that slowed me down.

Within the program, you can jump around at will. If the current lesson seems too easy or difficult, you can back up or move forward. Not all language courses let you do that. With Duolingo, for example, you have to progress sequentially or test out of levels.

Fluenz pushes writing a little more than speaking, especially in the early units, but overall it blends listening, reading, speaking, and writing well. It also has that classroom feel because of the instructional videos. If you want someone to explain how the language works, Fluenz is the app for you. In the Chinese course, for example, the videos explain tones, as well as how to answer yes/no questions in Chinese, which is quite different from how it's done in English. That's the kind of material that's difficult to get across in a program where there's no English instruction.

For the speaking portions, Fluenz doesn't have an advanced speech-recognition system, but it does have recording and playback capabilities.

Fluenz Extras

A few things you won't find in Fluenz are games and live web classes. I don't miss games, but live webinar classes can be a valuable addition to language-learning software. Rosetta Stone has these kinds of classes, and they're useful, though I get the impression that the instructors aren't allowed to deviate from their scripts at all.

For Spanish learners, Fluenz does sell an immersion course, and it sounds as much like a luxury vacation to Mexico City as a class. It's a one-week experience that involves a private chef, yoga, and lodging in a converted mansion. Prices aren't publicly listed, but coverage by L.A. Times puts it at $5,220 per person for double occupancy or $5,620 for singles.

Among the Best

If you're a stone-cold beginner in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Mandarin Chinese, Fluenz provides a thorough, enjoyable, and rewarding learning experience. The program contains enough high-quality content to justify the price. You likely will come away from Fluenz with a solid base understanding of a new language and a number of useful words and phrases that you can piece together to create new meaning. If you enjoy having a teacher but can't afford a live class, Fluenz is one of the best options.

Like Editors' Choice Rosetta Stone, Fluenz can help you build a solid foundation in grammar, pronunciation, reading, and writing. Rosetta Stone has programs in many more languages, though, while Fluenz only covers seven languages. If Fluenz has the language you need and you don't like Rosetta Stone, definitely give it a try. I also suggest Duolingo, our other Editors' Choice, which is free.

Fluenz

Bottom Line: Fluenz recreates aspects of classroom learning in its foreign language instruction. It's one of the best pieces of language-learning software on the market, but it only offers a few languages.

Before joining PCMag.com, she was senior editor at the Association for Computing Machinery, a non-profit membership organization for computer scientists and students. She also spent five years as a writer and managing editor of Game Developer magazine, … See Full Bio